In fashion

   Every single night, Maddie Compton would fix every single piece of clothing she had been able to find in the second hand stores she visited that week. Sometimes they weren’t even fashion stores but places where she could buy the fabric she liked the most and modify it enough to create something no one had ever wore before. She had the advantage of having a great eye for design and a great taste in clothing. After all, she read all the magazines she could get her hands on, for free of course.

 Maddie was not a wealthy woman but she pretended to be, going to the most prestigious parties with the elite of the city. Many loved her designs and praised her for it. She even got some friends during those parties but the truth was that she had accepted the fact she couldn’t’ really get too close to anyone. Realizing that she was not who she said she was wouldn’t have been too hard for someone close to her, so she tried hard not to overstay her welcome in such events.

 She had made some mistakes in the past, as going out after with a guy she had met at the party. It would normally be a one-night stand, as she would escape the room as silently as she could and then leave to her life far away from the skyscrapers and lovely apartments those people had. Sometimes it was really hard for her, because she really wanted to be like them. She wanted that life which was certainly much easier than her own. She wanted to feel people cared about who she was.

 Of course, Maddie knew many of the people she met in those parties were not fully honest with her but it wasn’t possible that among so many people there wasn’t at least one person that actually liked what she did. One of her ideas at first had been to find someone willing to give her money to design dresses for some brand, at least as a test. They were certainly the type to do that but it came to be much more difficult than what she had anticipated. Rich people were too in love with themselves.

 To be fair, she was too. Maddie was the kind of woman that always looks at her own reflection on the mirror in the morning and then several more times during the day. She couldn’t avoid taking pictures of herself and it wasn’t even to share with friends or family, it was just to take a look at herself and try to reinforce some weird acceptance of her own being in her brain. She knew she needed people’s approval to feel she had made it and that’s why she had gone after the opinions of people who mattered, the ones that had money and could take decisions.

 The young woman had made several dresses and then she would sell them in the same stores she bought the ones that she modified and turned into sensations. Many store owners were very grateful for what she did because many of her designs sold very well with younger women that wanted something different to wear at an affordable price. It was the only way for her to make some money, besides working some days in a call center, helping with pizza deliveries from around the world.

 Maddies wanted to live of her designs. That or get one of those rich men to make her a rich woman through marriage but that was a lot trickier because she would began their life together by lying at that was never the best way to initiate a new relationship. Luckily, none of the guys she had dated had ever asked too much about her. Most men her age were too focused on themselves and their own achievements to even ask about what she really wanted out of life.

 It wasn’t the life she would have wanted for herself but it was the one she had and the one that made sense. She needed to insist on her only talent and if making clothes were the way to go, she would try it as long as she could. She made a very small amount of money out of it but it was the only activity that clamed her down and made her feel the world is not as awful as one would think it is, at least sometimes. The sound of her machine was the perfect way to distract her brain.

 It was the exact opposite of the parties she attended where most people were vicious and just loved to tear others apart, especially the women. Maybe it was because they had always been under appreciated, even when they were such wealthy people, but the ladies could be savage with newcomers and when the tastes of others didn’t match what was generally accepted. Maddie had to check all that out before going out to one of those events, in order to be praised but never mocked.

 She was very successful that way. She even decided to learn a bit more about make up and how to achieve a complete look that would fool anyone. She would imitate looks from magazines or inspire herself from those, with her cheap fabrics and dresses and accessories she practically remade herself. She always laughed alone in her apartment, thinking that if a policeman found her there he would think she was managing the least successful pirating ring ever. She did it all perfectly but always in a very small scale, in order not to attract the wrong attention.

 After a very long time trying to make it, Maddie finally attracted the right person for what she wanted to do. Her name was Emilia Gobstone and she was one of the wealthiest women in the city. She had an amazing apartment where many parties were held, having appeared in numerous occasions in many magazines. She fell in love with Maddie and one of her dresses and asked the young woman to make her and her daughters the same dress for a special party in a country club.

 Maddie did as asked and Mrs. Gobstone could not have been happier. The fabric Maddie had used was one of the best she had ever worked with, spending a very large sum to get it. But she knew she needed the best to be successful with that particular request. She was right. The wealthy woman was so happy, that she paid double what they had agreed on in the first place and asked Maddie to make her clothes for every event in the fall season that was getting nearer by the minute.

 With such a success, she decided to retire from going to parties and such and focus more on her dresses and their quality. From the point of view of her craft, she had made the best choice. However, many people wondered where she had left to and it was then when they found out who she really was. Everyone made fun of her in social media, posting pictures they had with her and telling the most awful stories about her. Some were based on things she had said, but they all twisted her words and some were only lies.

 She finished her work on Mrs. Gobstone’s dresses and wrote her a letter apologizing for everything. She sent her creations and the letter one afternoon and then decided to leave the city for a while, needing some fresh air, something she wouldn’t be able to get in such a city, which felt a little bit too crowded sometimes. She grabbed a suitcase, put some of her clothes and just left, trying not to think too much about everything that had happened in the last few years. 

 To her surprise, Mrs. Gobstone’s personal butler found her in her parent’s home, many kilometers away from the city. He told her his mistress needed her urgently and that it couldn’t wait. Maddie accepted the ride and, a few hours later, she was in the woman’s apartment.

 There, the socialite gave her a check to pay for her dresses and told her she wouldn’t be able to hire her again. However, she could do something else for her, as a personal way to thank her for her work. The following week, an specialized magazine called Maddie, in order to arrange an interview.

The apartment

   Arthur just couldn’t keep himself from doing a party. He always had to have one. It didn’t matter if it was only him and a few people or with a large crowd. Somehow, he needed that at least twice a week and if holidays happened to be occurring, the number grew considerably. Once, he even drank every single night of one week. The amazing part of it all was that the following week he looked good as new, as if nothing had happened.

 Having him as a roommate was particularly difficult. The parties were one big part of it but also his lack of order and cleanliness. Every time he cooked something, the kitchen seemed to have exploded: every pan and pot was in the wrong cabinet, there was rice all over the floor and even small puddles of water or other liquids on the floor. He would also get ketchup on the walls, and would never, even by an act of kindness, get the trash out to the street.

 Normally, a person like that would have been thrown out of an apartment after a couple of mishaps, but there was an important detail to be considered: the two bedroom apartment, which had a large living room, a balcony, a very big bathroom and comfortable rooms, was owned by Arthur’s father, who also happened to be one of the richest men in his country. The man was very powerful and it wasn’t a surprise he had properties a little bit everywhere.

 Anyhow, that’s how I met Arthur. I remember having arrived to the city, from my country and after a twelve-hour flight. I had browsed online for days until I had finally found a proper place to stay in. The apartment looked incredible and the price was just insane. At first, I thought there had been a mistake but, after I decided to write, they confirmed that the price of the room I wanted was correct. Immediately, I booked the room, excited to have found such a bargain.

 When I arrived, a month later, the first person I met was not Arthur but his father. I had no idea of who he was back then and even now I don’t really now the extent of his power and wealth. After all, Arthur and I are not from the same country and his father is not very well known to me. However, he was very kind, greeting me as I arrived. He made a brief tour of the apartment and then asked to have a chat after signing all the papers.

 He wanted me to understand something: his son was going to leave there too and that’s why the rent of my room was so cheap. I didn’t understand at first but he said I would I due time. He only asked patience of me and swore I would be glad I had decided to live there. At first, I thought he was just exaggerating. I was very wrong!

 Arthur had grown to be a very tall guy. His feet were big and his hands too. His head was a bit smaller compared to the rest of his body and that made him look weird at first. Of course, the first few days were just perfect. The apartment was not only huge and very well located; it was also very modern and had everything one would need, even a maid that would come in every Thursday to clean up. She was a very chatty woman and it was nice to talk to her when she came.

 The first party occurred just after the first month had gone bye. It was a big shock to see at least twenty people, all over the living room, drinking beers and watching some show on the TV screen. Hours later, they would turn the music up and start dancing and jumping and being all crazy. The rooms were separated from the living room by a corridor, which could be closed by a door. And if you also closed the door of your room, the noise wasn’t too bad.

 But the noise factor was only a part of it all. It was much more annoying to be walking to the kitchen the next day and having to avoid stepping on someone that was sleeping on the floor or on food or on the various puddles of beer. Of course, when they all went home, they would never clean anything up. Everything would remain as it was, as if a bomb had gone of in the middle of the living room and also the bathroom. It was just too disgusting.

 I called his father the first time. I was furious, telling him about all the vomit there was on the bathroom floor and about the unconscious bodies on the living room and the smells and the amount of dirty dishes on the kitchen sink. But he just calmed me down by saying he would send Minerva, the maid, to clean up and that everything would be fine. Then, I decided not to day a word because I thought it was a once in a year thing, once every six months at least.

 Minerva came and cleaned everything in less than an hour. It was as if she was magical. And she didn’t say anything about all the disgusting things around. I kept complaining to her but she only nodded and said “Yeah”, which should have been a red flag but I just didn’t see it. When I wanted to comment on the mess with Arthur, he argued he was too busy and would just leave the apartment or get locked in his room.

 I had never been the type to ask fro friendships or to want to have a huge bond with the people I lived with. I just don’t think it’s necessary. But I was willing to try if it meant getting sure that bomb didn’t go off again. However, Arthur didn’t let me. We spoke very few words and that was during my whole stay there, which lasted a full year.

 Arthur seemed like a very private person but then he would bring two buddies to drink beer and watch a game in the living room. And then they would start smoking pot and then some girls would arrive and then more people and suddenly he would have a party on his hands that he even wasn’t around to handle. It was wasn’t uncommon to arrive late at the apartment and finding a party where the person that lived there appeared to be missing. People he invited, of course, didn’t care. But it was stressful not to find him when the mess was going out of control.

 Neighbors didn’t complain for two reasons: the first one was the apartment was actually sound proof. So it didn’t really matter how loud the parties could get, the people on the same floor or on the one below (as it was a penthouse) could only hear a very soft hum. That was it. The other reason was that they know who was the owner of the apartment and it was a general consensus that they didn’t want problem which someone like that.

 So complaining was not a popular thing. And those parties and that mess happened every single week of the year except for two glorious one in March, when Arthur was forced by his dad to visit his family back home. It was the only time Arthur shared a bit of his life, only to complain about it. When he left, the calm in the apartment was almost overwhelming but it was welcomed.

 I could sleep a lot better and could use the TV without him been there. I could keep everything the way I liked it and even Minerva told me that I should leave her more to clean. I enjoy those two weeks thoroughly but was always afraid a party would appear out of nowhere because that’s how it worked. I went out a couple of days and arrived late and it was so strange to get there and seeing no drunk people on the floor and having a clean bathroom to pee in before going to bed.

 Of course, that didn’t last long. Arthur came back and the following months were just as horrible as the rest. I endured because my parents were really glad I didn’t have to spend so much money on a place. I also didn’t want to break the contract, which stated that if I left before the last specified date, I would not get my deposit, which I needed. So I had to endure by going out of that place every day of that summer.

 I went to the beach almost every day. I even made a couple of friends there. But then I would have to go back to the mess. I reminded myself that it was only for a few more months and then it would all be done. I would go back home and I wouldn’t have to care about cleaning floors or doing dishes that hadn’t been used by me.

 The last day, we had a conversation. It was very surreal. He said he was very sorry about how everything had been between us and regarding the apartment. It was obvious his father or someone had talked to him. Or maybe it was him, who had had a revelation. But, honestly, I didn’t care. My luggage was ready at the door and I ordered a taxi on my phone as he spoke. We just shook hands and I forgot all about him, until today.

I did it

    I did it. I have to acknowledge, after long hours of thinking and deciding was it’s best, that I do have to consider what I have done and said. The fact that now I present myself as a guilty man, does not mean that I think that everything that happened that night and the following years, was all under my control. As you know, things can happen and we just can’t control ourselves, we are driven by something else, some other version of us that is more primal and simpler or more sophisticated and brilliant. No, I’m not trying to excuse myself but I am trying to explain what I think that has to be explained. After all, many of you would be reading this wondering how I ended up here.

 They have labeled me as someone with privilege and I have to accept that my life has been much richer in objects and shallow things that most people’s. I had the chance of having been born into a family that was able to provide with many things, many which were useful like education and others that could have gotten me away from this mess. I don’t blame, at all, my parents or anyone else for what happened. I know that it was me, and me only, who caused so much pain and misery. But I cannot talk about all of this and ignore the fact that I was able to spend money when others weren’t able to do it. Yes, I was privileged but in no way have I ever been rich, loaded with some many things I couldn’t remember all of them. That’s not my life, don’t believe that from them.

 I started writing this letter because my therapist thought it would be easier for me to talk about all of this in this form. I have never really been one to write or to ever think much about anything. But this trial, this process, it has taken over seven years of my life. I was another person when I did it. I do not mean that I am less guilty because of that but I think it’s important you understand every single aspect of this situation from my point of view. After all, al of this time you have seen me as an evil character, someone worst than the devil, like a serial killer or something. And that’s not me. I do have a soul and I do have a brain and feelings.

 The hardest part of this whole process has been having my parents live it with me. They didn’t deserve to be drawn into this vortex of media frenzy, hate from every corner and suppositions and insults and so many other things that have made this time a living hell. I don’t say I don’t deserve it but they are innocent in all of this. My upbringing had nothing to do with why I did it, they didn’t have anything to do with it because they were great parents, they were great people who I actually pushed away in that moment and I do believe that if I had being closer to them, if I had been a good son, maybe I wouldn’t be writing this letter from a rusty table in a very small cell of a major prison.

 About life in jail, I do not want to talk about. It is well known that I have avoided death several times here. They think I’m far worse than them and I honestly don’t know if that’s true. But if I have to remain here for the rest of my life, I want to live as long as they do, as comfortably as they do, because they do have many things here, like outside. The men that have tried to hurt me are the ones that handle a small black market that trades every single thing you can imagine, even those razors they have tried to use to kill me. But I have to say here, without any modesty, that they have nothing to do with me in a fight. They might be big and tough and now the drug world and the hard life but my life had rough patches too and during many of those times I learned a couple of things.

 No, I don’t really want to sound like a bad guy. Maybe I am but I do not want to sound like that. I just think I just should be given the same chances that everyone else has. But I know I am here and that I will possibly live here until I die so at least I want to make this work. Yes, that doesn’t make any sense but I don’t think it has to have any sense at all. I did something wrong, a bit drunk and high but I did it and now, I think I can take the punishment. Because I did it and I have to recognize that. I did do it and I am sorry.

 I know that, for many years during the trial and all of the process, my lawyer has insisted that I was so wasted, so consumed by marihuana and cocaine and booze that I had no idea about anything, that I couldn’t have done even if that had been my intention. The truth is I do remember some flashes, like fragments of my memory and I have to confess they are very confusing. I do not now if I remember those parts more because my brain was really fucked up or because I have chosen unconsciously to only remember bits and pieces.

 I do remember the party. Fuck, that was a huge party and the kind of party I had gone to many times without anything weird happening. I’m not proud of it, but back then I was just starting my career and I had so much going on. I was very popular in every sense possible and successful too, so people liked to make me feel special and tended to my every need as if I was an all powerful being that needed to be pampered every single second of his life. And I was. Many brought me alcohol, others brought me drugs and others brought themselves. And we would party all night.

 Another confession: I was in the closet during all those years. I had never dared to publicly tell anyone that I fucked men but people that knew me really well did know and I think some of them are responsible for what happened to Blake. I mean, I did it and I acknowledge that but they should be here too.

 After all one of them was his cousin. He brought me cocaine and other stuff that I would use in private with my lovers. Yes, because I had many. Back then, I had bought this nice apartment, nothing too fancy, and that was where everything happened. My business grew in there, all the parties and the craziness happened there and what happened and got me here also happened there. I wasn’t thinking, that is obvious. I wasn’t smart enough to know that many of those people that fed me all of those things I consumed were not my friends; they didn’t really want me as a significant part of their lives. They were just leeches, taking away things from me and I didn’t even saw it.  I actually think I didn’t want to see it because it would have been obvious otherwise.

  They did fake it for long and just like Robert, Blake’s cousin; they all brought me things that I would enjoy. He was the one who gave Blake to me as a present and I have to confess Blake didn’t know anything or at least he didn’t seem to know anything. I cannot say anything for sure and I wouldn’t be the kind of person to blame the victim. As I have said many times, it’s Roberts fault and mine, of course. He brought to my birthday party and just presented him as a friend. I did like him because he’s a beautiful guy but the party went on and I don’t remember launching myself at him from the first second.

 I was too busy getting high and performing that sick and stupid persona I had created for everyone else to see. It was such a fake, such a false representation of what I was. Or rather, what I had been. Because just a few years earlier, before money and false friends, I was a guy trying to live his life and even falling in love. I was normal and I was a human and I do believe I’m a human now, even if many of you don’t think so. I have feeling and I know that because I have barely endured all of these years trying not to be consumed by my own hatred, by guilt and so much pain. Because what I did not only affect one person. It also affected me. I know, I am not the victim but that’s how I feel.

 The fact is, however, that I vaguely remember finally speaking to him. I was drunk but I tried to make me look great in front of him. Then my memory goes very blurry, I think we did cocaine and he was wasted much faster than me. The next fragment I have in my head is him falling slowly on my bed, the sound of the music far away and me trying to take off his jeans. I remember him fighting, I do remember it… Oh my god, I remember. He was fighting, as much as he could and he couldn’t do much. The cocaine had gotten into him all right. Then, the next image is me forcing myself onto him and my hand feeling wet over his mouth.

 Then, I woke up the following morning, alone. And then the path to this cell started. I did rape him and I know that now, I accept it now, It is I fact and I am ashamed of it. I do blame drugs and alcohol and also Robert for having had the audacity to do that, almost setting a trap for me to fall into. But the fact remains that I did it, that I am guilty. And I would repeat this as many times as it’s necessary. Because I have come to the conclusion that I cannot live in this way any longer. I want peace. I did it.

Morning after

   He woke up hugging his pillow and naked. He had no memory of when and why he had removed all of his clothes but a glance to the floor next to the bed proved it was all there, all over the place. Unfortunately, there was also a smell that hit him hard and fast and which he was not preferred for. He was too tired and dizzy to get up from the bed and grab everything and put it in a bag. But he had too because the smell was too powerful and he couldn’t rest in peace with vomit all over the place. Because that’s what the smell was.

 He did what he had to do as fast as he could and went back to bed. He didn’t put on underwear or even a t-shirt to counter the cold morning. He simply covered himself with the thick bedspread and closed his eyes, ready to sleep for a couple more hours. But he couldn’t. He turned around in bed, tried hugging the pillow, tried sleeping on the side, on his back or his chest, but none of the positions worked. He just couldn’t fall asleep and he found frustrating because he did feel tired.

 Apparently when arriving that morning, he had had the time to pull down the blinds on his window and that’s why it the place look nice and dark but according to his alarm clock it was almost one in the afternoon. He had no idea at what time he had arrived but he knew he wasn’t going to sleep anymore. And that frustrated him. Anyway, he stayed there and just closed his eyes, listening to the sounds of the city.

 Suddenly, he heard the vibrating noise of his cellphone but the device was not on his night table. It wasn’t on the floor either and he hadn’t felt it in any of the clothes he had put on a bag to wash later. For a moment there, he thought he was imagining things and that the sound was only in his head. After all, he had a lot too drink and his body was still processing it all so maybe he was just hearing things that weren’t there. He closed his eyes, again, changed the position of his legs and tried to relax.

 But the sound came back. That humming sound felt near but it wasn’t in any of the obvious places, unless he had left it in the bathroom. But he didn’t remembered having been there after he arrived. So he stood up and went to the bathroom and didn’t find anything. Taking advantage of having stood up, he decided to pee and it was there when he realized where the cellphone was.

 When he finished in the bathroom he opened the door of his room, which was unusually closed, and found his boots lying there and his cellphone inside one of them. He couldn’t explain how he knew the device was there but the important thing was that he had found out and that he could happily return to his bed.

 There, he found out it had been a friend who had been calling, causing the cellphone to vibrate. She had called four times and had sent two messages asking if he was all right. He tried to remember if he knew why she was so worried but didn’t really know, although the most likely thing was that he had left the party without telling anyone and as drunk as he was she had been worried for him. He did kind of remember wandering around the streets, feeling the piercing cold of the morning and not even knowing exactly which bus he had to be taking to go back home. He finally got into one and probably fell asleep in it but woke up just a few blocks away from his usual stop.

 He decided to write a short message to his friend and let her know he was a bit confused and still dizzy but alive and well in his bed. She responded at once, telling him she had not been lucky enough to rest all day because she had a wedding to go and had to prepare for it. She was actually really late, even if the event was going to be place late that night. She told her friend to let her now the next time he decided to leave drunk from a party and he told her that if his brain worked that next time, she would get her warning.

 The man left his cellphone on the nightstand and just stayed there. He looked up to the ceiling but he was actually thinking about the party: he had been invited because the people that had organized it knew his friend but he had no real knowledge of anyone there. That’s why, from the moment he arrived to the moment he left, he started gulping down glass after glass of alcohol: wine, rum, vodka and so on. The cocktail he was making in his belly was more dangerous than any of the actual cocktails that were made for people in clubs and pubs.

 No one even looked at him all night, not to say “Hi” or to fake and interest and ask something. And to be honest, he happened to dislike most of the people more and more as the night went on and the alcohol dissolved in his body. They all seemed so pretentious, so full of shit to be honest, that he didn’t even want to be having a fake conversation with them, he though that would be even more excruciating that the embarrassment he felt when someone entered the bathroom when he was vomiting. But he never saw the face of the person, so he couldn’t care much.

 He left the party because, as always, he felt like the odd one out, like the different one even when he knew for a fact that he wasn’t different or special or anything like that. He didn’t have any tragedy in his life, he was suffering from anything like a disease or something and he was alive and well and living. He couldn’t really complain about anything but he left that party because he couldn’t take it anymore.

 It may have been the alcohol but he was sure that even sober he would have been bored even faster that he had been. Because he couldn’t try to join any of the conversations as people looked at him in bad way when he tried to enter one: he would just stand there and listen and try to elaborate some opinion on what they were talking about and then realize that some of the people looked at him as if he was something horrible standing there or, worse, as if he had no right to be there.

 He hated parties and going out and all that shit because of that, because every single time he did it he felt judged by one or many, he felt judged because he never had enough money to spend, he felt judged because he was in silence for long periods of time, he felt judged when he finally gave his opinion and people found it to be wrong somehow and it was very tiring. He realized that he gulped down alcohol when it was free and he could do it because it created a barrier that protected him from everyone being assholes and it kind of worked.

 But he knew he couldn’t do that always. He couldn’t just hide behind glasses and glasses of vodka because he wasn’t really that person, he wasn’t a drunkard because he loved alcohol, and he was one only when he felt the need to escape. And when he didn’t have any money he just left the places where he was because pressure proved to be too heavy sometimes. No one ever tried to stop him or anything but he did dream about that, he wanted someone some day to be finally interested by him, even if there was nothing to say.

 It was his belief that everyone wants that in life, everyone wants to feel interesting and wants someone to be there and be all amazed and dazzled by your life, even if there’s nothing that’s amazing or marvelous or interesting in it. He knew that he wanted that. Even more, he needed that person urgently but whoever he was, because it had to be a he, wasn’t here and with some many people in the world and his way of being and so on, he knew it would be different.

 He was clear too that he wouldn’t change his way of being, his personality, because that would be just compliance and trying to change to make others feel nice and he didn’t wanted to be one of those people. He wanted someone to be happy with the actual him and not with some clever invention that made everyone more comfortable. He actually pitied people that went through physical and personality changes just to please, he thought of them as pathetic little people that lacked the balls it needed to go through life, even when he also felt very weak most of the time.

 He decided to turn around, lay in his belly and just sleep a bit more. He finally felt he could close his eyes and go to a land that was only his and maybe there he would find that person he needed. Maybe they would hold hands and talk or just share a moment together. Then, when time would come to open his eyes, he would just promise to wait patiently until the day they would actually meet.